Shloka 16
Chapter 10: Survivors Console the Royal Couple and Disperse (धृतराष्ट्र–गान्धारी प्रति निवेदनम्)
राजन! जो नारियाँ छोटे-से-छोटे शोकमें भी एक दूसरीके पास जाकर आश्वासन दिया करती थीं, वे ही शोकसे व्याकुल हो परस्पर दृष्टिपातमात्र कर रही थीं ।। ताभि: परिवृतो राजा रुदतीभि: सहस्रश: । निर्ययौ नगराद् दीनस्तूर्णमायोधन प्रति,उन रोती हुई सहसों स्त्रियोंसे घिरे हुए दुःखी राजा धृतराष्ट्र नगरसे युद्धस्थलमें जानेके लिये तुरंत निकल पड़े
vaiśampāyana uvāca | tābhiḥ parivṛto rājā rudatībhiḥ sahasraśaḥ | niryayau nagarād dīnas tūrṇam āyodhana prati ||
Vaiśampāyana said: Those women who once, even in the smallest sorrow, would go to one another with words of comfort were now so shaken by grief that they could only cast glances at each other. Then the king Dhṛtarāṣṭra, utterly desolate, surrounded by thousands of weeping women, quickly departed from the city toward the battlefield.
वैशम्पायन उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse highlights the ethical weight of war: collective suffering overwhelms social roles and customary consolations, and a ruler must face the consequences of conflict not as abstraction but as lived grief.
After the great slaughter, Dhṛtarāṣṭra, surrounded by innumerable crying women, leaves the city in haste to go to the battlefield, where the dead and the devastation will be seen directly.